


just mangled guts pretending

by warandrunning



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Arthur Morgan doesn't live, Canon Divergence, Gen, but he does get some closure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-11-06 22:14:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17948117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warandrunning/pseuds/warandrunning
Summary: Arthur's been too tired to be fully angry for a while now, but the thought of that no-good, two-bit, shit-eating, backstabbing, heartless, greedy little snake Micah Bell being the one to finally put Arthur in the grave is more than he can take.-Another take on how Arthur Morgan dies, with less groveling and more contemplating.





	just mangled guts pretending

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted more from Arthur and Dutch's final scene, and also I wanted Arthur to have the satisfaction of killing Micah himself. So I wrote it, goddamnit! 
> 
> Title from this bit of "Angels in America":  
> Harper: In your experience of the world. How do people change?  
> Mormon Mother: Well it has something to do with God so it’s not very nice.  
> God splits the skin with a jagged thumbnail from throat to belly and then plunges a huge filthy hand in, he grabs a hold of your bloody tubes and they slip to evade his grasp but he squeezes hard, he insists, he pulls and pulls till all your innards are yanked out and the pain! We can’t even talk about that. And then he stuffs them back in, dirty, tangled and torn. It’s up to you to do the stitching.  
> Harper: And then get up. And walk around.  
> Mormon Mother: Just mangled guts pretending.  
> Harper: That’s how people change.

Arthur is certain that it’s over.

Been a long time coming now, and here in this storm on the edge of this cliff with the Pinkertons surrounding them and Micah squaring up and howling at him, Arthur knows. He’s been too tired to be fully angry for a while now, but the thought of that no-good, two-bit, shit-eating, backstabbing, heartless, greedy little snake being the one to finally put Arthur in the grave is more than he can take.

“Come on then, you son of a bitch,” Arthur growls, raising his knife and his curled fist.

Micah lunges, and Arthur, sick as he is, still manages to dodge the brute.

His good fortune ends there.

When Micah swings back around to lunge for Arthur again, he’s lower than Arthur anticipates, and Micah’s shoulder connects with Arthur’s gut, driving him into the cliff face. The impact knocks the knife clean out of Arthur’s hand and what little breath he’s been able to gather out of his lungs.

Micah leans his forearm into Arthur’s throat, pinning him with the full weight of his heavier body, and it wasn’t always this way, but Micah’s gained weight since he took up with the van der Lindes, and Arthur’s — well. Arthur’s not the strapping man he used to be.

Listen. Listen. Arthur sure as hell isn’t gonna let Micah kill him and plant revenge fantasies in the heads of his dumbshit family. He’s seen Sadie mad, and he knows what’ll become of Micah if Arthur isn’t the one to end it here and now. Arthur will give him a quicker, kinder death, and Micah himself would agree if only he knew.

It’s just getting to the killing part that’s the trouble.

Arthur struggles against Micah’s grip on him, breath coming in shallow wheezes. As he glances around wildly, the glint of his revolver catches his eye. Too far to reach in his current situation, but he can make a run for it if he can just get free.

“What’s goin’ on, Black Lung?” Micah sneers into his face. “Cat got your tongue?”

Arthur sneers back and kicks viciously at Micah’s shins. His footing slips, just a little bit, but it’s enough — Arthur frees his arms and pushes away from the rock as he grapples Micah’s shoulders, aiming to throw him aside. He’s only partially successful, but he’s bought himself enough time to scramble to the gun.

He’s on the ground, on his back, gun in his hand, and it’s not ideal conditions but in his — uh, his condition it’s the best he’s going to get and Micah’s almost on top of him anyway so Arthur just points and shoots and hopes for the best.

He can barely hear the crack around the peals of thunder, but he doesn’t have to hear it to see his aim was true. Micah falls to his knees, clutching his chest. Arthur’s tempted to shoot him again, just for good measure, but he’s learned some restraint in his old age. The once is enough, he can see it in Micah’s eyes.

Arthur watches the life leak out of Micah, from the fading in his eyes to the dark stain spreading down his chest, and he feels nothing at all.

Dutch, for all his failings, was right about one thing: Revenge is a waste of goddamn time.

He watches Micah tip over and lie motionless on the ground for a few moments, just to be sure, then lets his own head fall back to the ground. He looks up at the stormy sky for a moment, considering his very limited options, and decides that laying here for a while, flat on his back with the sky falling down on him, is the most amenable one for now.

“Arthur!”

He’s been hearing voices that aren’t there for a while now, so Arthur’s almost sure it isn’t real — the Dutch he knows nowadays would be long gone, run off to save his own hide, damn the folk he called family for so long.

But he hears gravel crunching, and with more effort than it should take just to open his eyes and turn his goddamn head, he looks up. And there’s Dutch, soaked to the bone, rain dripping off the tips of his nose and moustache, neat clothes all torn to shreds.

“Arthur,” Dutch says again, hand resting on his holstered pistol.

Arthur really should sit up, he thinks, have some self-respect at the end here, but he’s just so goddamn tired. So he stays where he is, and he lifts one weak hand to gesture at the scene around them before letting it fall back to the ground.

“He was a rat, Dutch, I keep tellin’ you,” Arthur says. “But you didn’t listen and now look. Now look where we are.”

“Arthur, just stop. It’s over.”

Arthur’s had a while now to think about what he needs to say to his people before he goes. He even wrote up some letters — for Charles, for Sadie, for John, Jack and Abigail — because he didn’t trust his voice to make what’s in his head come out right. But any time he thought about what needed telling to Dutch, his mind went blank. How do you sum up a life spent, then a life wrecked?

Dutch is just standing over him, uncharacteristically silent. Hasn’t drawn his weapon or done anything — he’s just standing over Arthur, regarding.

Arthur takes a breath, getting ready to say something, even though he’s still not sure what, and instead a terrible cough takes him. He rolls onto his side to get through it, and when it’s over, Arthur manages to finally sit up.

Dutch sighs, rolls his eyes, and sags. Then he shakes his head and turns away, without another word.

Look, Arthur might not know what to say to Dutch anymore, but it’s gotta be more than nothing. He won’t give Dutch the satisfaction of just walking away after ruining their 20 years of life together.

“I gave you everything I had, Dutch,” he says to Dutch’s back. “So come back here and take the rest. Take my life and be done with me.”

Dutch stops. “I loved you, son,” he says without turning around. “What happened? What happened to us?”

Arthur shakes his head. He thinks about all the years he spent with Hosea — all the years Hosea spent on him, more like, teaching him and growing him and showing him how to be a man — how all that time came to an end between one breath and another, and how Arthur never got to say goodbye, and how Dutch didn’t even seem to bat an eye. He thinks about Lenny, and all the potential that boy had, all of it wasted for one bad bank job. And everyone else dead, nearly too many names to list by now, and that’s not even mentioning all the folk still out there whose lives have been ruined from what they’ve done here.

And for what?

“Saw too many of our own die, Dutch,” Arthur says. “Saw my own death. Couldn’t… couldn’t stomach it no more.”

Dutch scoffs, and finally turns back to regard Arthur. “Illness made you weak, Arthur. Turned you soft.”

“Weak?” And since his useless, rebellious body can’t seem to get a handle on the situation, Arthur falls into a fit of coughing. “No, it made me strong,” he says once he can catch his breath. “Made me realize the value of life. Of family.”

“Family!” Dutch spits. “You’ve forgotten what family means entirely. You turned your back on us. On me.”

Arthur sighs, a sad, shuddering, rattling thing. “Greed has surely made you blind if you think I turned on you.” He lifts his head, with some effort, to look Dutch in the eye. “Everything I’ve been doing these past months has been to save our people. More’s at stake than money, Dutch. We gotta protect our honor, what little that we have.”

“Honor,” Dutch repeats. “What use is _honor_? There’s nothing left out here but survival, at any cost.”

The Dutch who raised Arthur never would’ve said anything like that. They had a code, and even though they were bad men, they had each other — and that’s what separated them from those they fought. Arthur thought he didn’t have any space left in him for more pain, but hearing Dutch toss aside the very core of what made their family a family — it’s a kind of ache he didn’t know he could feel.

Arthur’s not sure where to go from here. If Dutch won’t listen to him now, with everything they built in ruins and death rattling in Arthur’s chest, there’s not much of anything Arthur can do anymore.

“If that’s what you think, Dutch, we got nothin’ more to say to each other.”

“I guess so, Arthur,” Dutch replies. He runs a hand through his soaked hair and nods, mostly to himself. He gives Arthur one last look, one Arthur doesn’t know how to interpret, and then he’s gone, disappearing up the mountain.

Arthur tries to make himself comfortable, but there’s not much of that left for him. Not that it matters — he feels the end coming, now. The clouds part, and the sun rises, painting pale streaks of pink and orange across the sky. Even though nothing else in his life turned out the way he wanted it, Arthur’s grateful at least he got to die the way he always wanted.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!! I'm restivewit on Tumblr, come holler at me about cowboys.


End file.
